Procter & Gamble

The Procter & Gamble partnership was created October 31, 1837, in Cincinnanti, Ohio, by William Procter, a soap maker and James Gamble, a candle maker. Both men emigrated from the United Kingdom. The suggestion for the two men to form a partnership, to manufacture and sell candles and soap came from their mutual father-in-law, Alexander Norris. Procter & Gamble location first operated out of a storeroom at Main and Sixth streets. Procter ran the store while Gamble ran the manufacturing operation, which at that time consisted of a wooden kettle with a cast-iron bottom set up behind the shop. Early each morning Gamble visited houses, hotels, and steamboats collecting ash and meat scraps, bartering soap cakes for the raw materials. Candles were Procter & Gamble's most important product at that time.

During the 1850’s when Procter & Gamble's shipment were moving up and down the river and across the country by train, their famous moon-and-stars symbol was created. The symbol was created due to so many people being illiterate. Trademarks were used to distinguish one company’s products from another. By this time business for Procter & Gamble begin to grow rapidly. Procter & Gamble moved its operations to a bigger factory, with better access to shipping routes and stockyards where hogs were slaughtered. In 1854 the company leased an office building in downtown Cincinnati. Procter managed sales and bookkeeping and Gamble continued to run the manufacturing. By the end of the decade, the company's annual sales were more than $1 million, and Procter & Gamble employed about 80 people.